Sadly, just a few days after the passing of Boyd Coddington, the world has lost another veteran hot rod builder. Former Coddington colleague, John Buttera, lost his battle with brain cancer on March 2nd. He was 67. 'Lil John Buttera was one of the pioneers of the Southern California performance scene. He initially moved to the West Coast from Wisconsin in order to work with Mickey Thompson on his famed Land Speed Record streamliner. Buttera then moved onto producing legendary dragsters and Funny Cars out of his own chassis shop in Cerritos, California. He even entered his own creation into the 1987 Indianapolis 500, which qualified eighth and earned him the Clint Brawner Mechanical Excellence Award. Our sincere condolences go out to his friends and family.
[Source: Inside Line]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Bob @ Mar 4th 2008 4:40PM
Rest in peace John.
RLQ @ Mar 4th 2008 5:45PM
Not a good 1.5 weeks for hotrod builders.
Steve62 @ Mar 4th 2008 8:50PM
I remember this issue. The silver Camaro in the background is John's son Chris(?) leaning against a car that he built up. This cover folded out. The Camaro was wrecked in a crash with phone pole while goofing around, and then repaired to like-new status again. I believe his son was a round 17 at the time, and was building some cars with his dad. I have no idea if he continues in the Buttera car building legacy.
scott 3 @ Mar 4th 2008 11:00PM
This is a real loss vs last week.
John was top notch builder, Fabricator and sheetmetal guy. There was little this guy could not do.
He is the guy that put Boyd on the map. He did a lot of the work for Boyd and seldom got the credit.
John was never out for fame he just wanted the a new challange and to build the best cars he could.
His Indy car was a piece of art in a day technology was starting to take over. His car was one of the last true hot rods at Indy.
If you has a favorite drag racer in the 60's and 70's they were behind a chassie he built. His funny cars were the package to have back in the day.
In my opinion the guy last week got too much credit for too many others work and John never got enough credit for his own work.
Sad to see a true ledgend go!!